Tuesday, March 9, 2010

As I sit here contemplating what exactly I should write I can feel the nights chill vibrate through me, it runs up my spine and sends goosebumps down my arms. I love night and all the mystery it brings. The cool fresh air, the many sounds; night creatures you cannot see, the whirl of leaves as the wind picks them up to carry them off to a new home, and the noise that sounds so much like absolute silence. Everything is louder at night, because when darkness engulfs around you it seems to bring a kind of silence with it. Not too many are awake at this hour. Their all safe in their warm beds doing what I love most and often do, dream. Dreaming is a passion of mine. I daydream often and I almost always have dreams while sleeping.

Memories seem a lot like dreaming to me. Remembering those times on the playground swinging by your knees upside down on the monkey bars. You don't realize how wonderful that feeling truly was until you're older and trying desperately to do it again, and just the slightest pressure on the back of your knees sends you screaming in pain. Dreaming about how limber you once were when you could climb up trees like one of the monkeys. So fast, so easy. My fondest memories are of when I was a child, as I hope most peoples are.

I can remember vividly as far back as about 4 or 5 maybe even younger. It's hard to know how old you are in your own visions of the past. It seems funny to me how our minds and memories work. For me, I can't remember everything I've ever done, learned, or read, but I try and soak up as much as I possibly can, more so now then when I was a teen. Mostly I remember my most fun, most horrid, and most intimate memories the best.

My favorite memories are of my childhood in a house I came to love. We didn't have a lot of money growing up, so we lived in an old one story pinkish color house with a worn porch, and weak broken windows covered with a thick plastic and duck-tape--the tape for men. Those things though didn't really matter much to a child because our front-yard was big and our backyard was vast and endlessly full of trees. I loved those days playing hide-and-seek in the woods. I love to run and I was the best at climbing trees so not many could catch me. It was fun and exhilarating being so high up when you're so small. Its strange how you could find yourself deep within the woods in a matter of minutes and still we always seemed to find our way home, though every tree looked the same. The adventures we had were endless. Pirates, soldiers, princesses, kings, ninjas, ninja turtles, and I could go on and on I'm sure. I grew up with two brothers and our next door neighbors were boys, so I was pretty much a tomboy from the get go. There was nothing they could do that I wouldn't try or do myself, even when they said, "No way, you're a girl!" I remember the boys next door had a treehouse and because I was girl there was no way they were letting me up there, and in an 'all boys clubhouse' at that. I would try climbing up the wood planks but they had ammo, pine-combs. They definitely hurt, so ultimately I would give up and go do my on thing like finding frogs, or climbing on things like my playhouse or the shed just so I could jump off. Eventually, the boys would get bored in their "all boy clubhouse" and come join me. It's amusing how that works. Boys are weird for sure.

I still love that pinkish worn down house and those woods. I had my first kiss there, my first set of stitches, and I played my first and last game of beebee gun tag, but those are stories for another time...

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Witty Remarks!:

This is a fantastic post, Krista. Your opening was great, and the rest of the memory-ride was fun and revealing. I grew up much like you did, amusing myself by exploring in the woods, even if there was no new land to explore. My brother and I were always playing outside, always up to something.

I love dreaming too and thinking of childhood memories. I am such a nostalgia nut. I thinkas we get older we come full circle and try to recapture the feelings we had as a child, that safety, that warmth (if you are lucky enough to have a safe happy childhood). I think about that all the time and try to make my son feel like i did as a kid.

Logan, Thank you! You didn't know I had it in me, did you?! haha Just kidding! I really didn't have any idea what I was going to write about and the post just seemed to form on its own. I didn't even title it until the very end and I think it fits the post well. I had a lot of fun writing it and I'm really glad you enjoyed it. :)Ah, memories, indeed. *sigh*

Michelle(red headed book child), dreaming is so magnificent, isn't it. I, too, do the same with my lil' girl and I hope she enjoys her childhood as much as I did if not more. :)

Ryan G, thank you so much for the compliment! I am so glad you enjoyed it :)

Michelle @ The True Book Addict, Thank you so much! I am trying my very best to work on my writing skills. Plus, this seems the perfect place to write it all down and have it for safe keeping and get wonderful feedback! lol :)

Juju at Tales of Whimsy, haha very well put :) and you are more than welcome I love your blog so its easy! :)

Melissa (My World...in words and pages), LOL! I know, it really just depends on the monkey bars... if they're small and skinny it really hurts but if they're a lil' more thick then I can hang upside down for a while. LOL! I am a big kid, no doubt! I love playing on the playground with my lil' one :)